“If it wasn’t for him, I really wouldn’t be here right now,” Williams said of the former NFA standout.

The junior had participated in Jones’ summer camps since he was in sixth grade, and also played AAU basketball for him.

Williams repaid his mentor with a 20-point effort Wednesday night that led the Wildcats to a 69-33 win over Jones’ Saints at Alumni Hall.

“I knew I really had to show in this game for all the stuff that he’s done for me,” Williams said, “and I’m glad my whole team did good.”

Good probably doesn’t sum it up enough. Great was more like it, with some small kinks that NFA coach Neal Curland probably will want to work on, such as getting putbacks to fall.

The Wildcats made only four of their first 22 shots, but still led at the end of the first quarter, 10-4. That’s because the Wildcats’ defense, led by Williams, got into the passing lanes and helped cause 10 Saints turnovers in the first quarter.

“It was really good that we were playing so well defensively, because offensively we were sputtering a little bit,” Curland said. “I told (my team) that if we held them to four points again in the second quarter, we should be OK.”

The Wildcats (4-2) did better than that. They held the Saints scoreless in the second quarter — they went 11 minutes, 55 seconds of the first half without a basket. That drought resulted in a deficit that Jones said he never experienced as a player, 35-4, at halftime.

“It’s very tough. There’s not much you can say,” Jones said of his walk into the halftime locker room. “They just had to dig deep and as coaches, we have to do a better job of preparing them for these games. I don’t put it on the kids, I put in on myself.”

It was a game that St. Bernard technically didn’t have to play this season. Curland said he offered Jones the chance to opt out of the game, especially since the Saints lost starters Pete Aldrich, Izzy Davila and Tristan Hurley to Fitch. But Jones wanted to play, and with his team off to a 4-0 start, had loads of confidence coming into the game.

“Of course I’m disappointed, I’m a competitor,” Jones said. “But the guys could have checked out after the first half and they didn’t.”

St. Bernard at least made the score respectable with an 18-point third quarter, five points coming from Remy Bonser (team-high 10 points).